Do You Have THE ENTREPRENEUR MIND?

I’ll admit it: I am addicted to the TV program Shark Tank. I watch the re-runs Monday through Friday on CNBC and the new shows Friday nights on ABC. In this reality show, one billionaire, Mark Cuban, and four mere multi-millionaires are wooed by would-be plutocrats to get one or more of these five panelists, these “sharks,” to ante-up their own money to invest as new partners in businesses that range from the brilliant to the brain-dead, from sure-fire successes to shaky start-ups, from “heroes” to “zeroes.”

Part of the charm of the show is getting a quick insight into the new business owners themselves, as the rich panelists make rapid-fire efforts to determine whether these owners are true “entrepreneurs” or, in Mark Cuban’s lingo, just “wantrepreneurs,” success-seekers not quite willing or able to make the sacrifices needed. I also like to try to understand how the panelists think, how they evaluate investment prospects and potential partners. Finally, it’s fun to see these titans of the marketplace compete, banter, jockey, collude, and occasionally let their hearts rule their heads.

Do you have The Entrepreneur Mind? That’s the three-word title of an excellent book recently authored by Kevin D. Johnson. Still young, born in 1979, currently the CEO of Atlanta’s Johnson Media Inc., which he founded, Kevin D. Johnson had already established several successful enterprises while still in his twenties. In his book, Johnson offers the would-be entrepreneur 100 category_idelines, complete with apt quotations, enriched by his personal experience, expressed candidly.

I liked Johnson’s comment that going into business just to make money is like getting married to get sex. To succeed at both, one needs a broader vision and more admirable motives. He’s not big on “follow your passion” nor “become your own boss,” either. Rather, he urges you to become an entrepreneur only if you want to provide goods and services that others value and if you get real pleasure out of so doing. Meet these criteria, and the money will likely follow. Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO, also favors pursuing a vision: “Chase the vision, not the money; the money will end up following you.” The Oprah urges, “Don’t put a ceiling on yourself.”

Kevin Johnson writes well–clearly, interestingly, with many supporting quotes and examples. Neither overly modest about his victories nor unwilling to share his failures, Johnson presents some hard truths, including that the entrepreneur has got to be wiling to put his business ahead of his family.

Fortunately, Johnson married a woman who is in synch with his lifestyle. Surprisingly to me, they have a mortgage. Though debt is a plausible part of financial diversification, when you owe money, you are less secure than when you do not. Debt is risky. You have to be willing to take risks, Johnson notes, and he has been both rich and nearly broke within the last two decades. It will be interesting to see whether he continues his well-earned winning streak or runs into circumstances that even diligence and talent cannot overcome.

Johnson’s success is at a moderate scale that puts him within reach of many potential readers. He has multi-million-dollar success rather than mega-million dollar triumphs, much less the billion-dollar riches of Mark Cuban or Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg or the founders of Microsoft, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, etc. Johnson’s modest wealth might not qualify him to be a panelist on Shark Tank. Even if his level of wealth is hard for us to reach, it is not out of sight. Thus, his advice is relevant to the would-be captain of industry during those early years when such captaincy is just a distant goal.

Sub-titled “100 Essential Beliefs, Characteristics, and Habits of Elite Entrepreneurs,“ Johnson’s book delivers as promised. The 100 topics are categorized within seven chapters: Strategy, Education, People, Finance, Marketing & Sales, Leadership, and Motivation.

Some of my favorites from his 100 are: Think Big; Create New Markets; Build a Company That Is Systems-Dependent, Not People-Dependent; Ask for Help; Business Comes First, Family Second; Hire a Good Lawyer; The Business Plan is Overrated; Fire Your Worst Customers; Technology is an Opportunity, Not a Threat; Always Follow Up; Failure Doesn’t Kill You; An Idea’s Execution, Not Its Uniqueness, Yields Success; Don’t Underestimate Your Competition; School Is Not Necessarily Education; Spend the Majority of Your Time with People Smarter than You; People Don’t Only Work for Money; Get the Right Mentor; A Check in Hand Means Nothing; The Biggest Investment in Your Company Is Yours; Your Customer Is Your Boss; Networking Isn’t All About You; Act in Spite of How You Feel; Make Difficult Sacrifices; You Are Excited When Monday Morning Arrives; You Are Disappointed When Friday Arrives; You Feel Unequaled Joy When Your Idea Becomes Reality.

Let’s examine a few of these in more detail:

Ask for Help. Do you? I find this hard. Is it easier or harder for women from a Confucian or Taoist tradition? I suspect it is even harder.

Business Comes First, Family Second. This is not the choice I would make, not the path I did take. Women are more likely to be family-oriented than men, and women from an Asian background, having family be so important, are going to find putting their family second hard, too.

School Is Not Necessarily Education. My Chinese-American wife’s family, and my own, emphasized education via college degrees. To ascend the white-collar job ladder, to keep from being discriminated against, a strong resume with impressive degrees seemed of great value. Yet, many of the most successful entrepreneurs got their training in the School of Hard Knocks, experience. For Asian Americans, first-generation laundries, restaurants, nail salons have financed second-generation doctors, professors, CEOs.

Spend the Majority of Your Time with People Smarter Than You. Well, we know they’ll be hard to find, but try.

Get the Right Mentor. I never did. If you can, do so. Programs to aid women in this regard exist. Your best bet is likely to be people like you, only older and already successful.

Make Difficult Sacrifices. We are constrained by time, money, talent, health, obligations, other circumstances. We cannot have it all. By this time in your lives, asiancemagazine.com readers are likely to already be familiar with doing now what is hard in order to get later what you will value even more.

You Are Disappointed When Friday Arrives. Question: How can one tell an entrepreneur from a workaholic? Answer: Perhaps one cannot. If you enjoy your work, it becomes play, not work. No TGIF for you.

Mr. Johnson knew he wanted to be a businessman early on, once he found he was too “vertically challenged” to make it into the National Basketball Association, even as a point guard. He now has the NBA as one of his premier accounts. He convinced me, however, that running my own business, being an entrepreneur, is a route I was glad I had not taken: too much work, too many trivial issues, more stress than I would want. Still, he has hobnobbed with interesting people and seems to have enjoyed his choices. Not about to become a millionaire businessman, I’ll have to settle for the vicarious pleasure of watching entrepreneurs-in-the-making on Shark Tank.

Unlike me, you may possess the entrepreneurial mind and decide to choose this more adventurous, more rigorous life. Henry Ford declared, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t—you’re right.“ Mark Twain advised, “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.“ Go to it…and good luck!

Dr. Cooper (douglas@tingandi.com) is a retired scientist, now a writer, editor, and writing coach. His first book, Ting and I: A Memoir of Love, Courage and Devotion, was published by Outskirts Press in 2011 and is available from Outskirts Press, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble, in paperback and ebook formats, as are two memoirs he co-authored subsequently, The Shield of Gold and Kidnapped Twice, and two memoirs he edited, High Shoes and Bloomers and But…at What Cost. On Twitter, he is @douglaswcooper. His editing and coaching site is http://writeyourbookwithme.com.